Well the bow I used to used when I was a teen, which is a recurve bow for weaker people (I'm smol and I was just starting out. I swear I could fire stonger bows but those jerks underestimated me) was a 25 pound bow, which means the string requires 25 pounds of force to pull back. An ancient greek war bow would have much more force than that, I imagine. Especially because all those grown men couldn't string Odysseus' bow.

I could be wrong about the dry firing. I just remember my instructor telling me to not even think about doing it.

This is all for fun though. It's a fantasy movie in the end.